The charm and elegance of Gianmaria Buccellati's fine goldsmith and jewelery creations find their ideal location in the enchantment of the Reggia di Venaria, a grandiose monumental complex on the outskirts of Turin, a masterpiece of European architecture and landscape declared a World Heritage Site Humanity by Unesco.
The jewels of Gianmaria Buccellati” presents over 90 precious pieces, many of which are unpublished, which demonstrate how creativity, tradition and artisanal excellence have become the building blocks of Gianmaria Buccellati's success around the world.
The exhibition, curated by Chiara Tinonin with Gianmaria and Rosie Buccellati, is the result of the collaboration between the "La Venaria Reale Consortium", the "Gianmaria Buccellati Foundation" and the "Foundation of Studies of the Goldsmith's Art and its Protagonists", with the coordination of the Swiss Luxury Culture Management. The exhibition reconstructs the fascinating artistic and entrepreneurial history of Gianmaria Buccellati and the ambitions of her genius, also through her own memories and the shots of the photographer Giò Martorana which restore the aesthetic intentions of the Buccellati style in an original visual itinerary.
The itinerary is divided into three sections and tells the story of Gianmaria Buccellati's extraordinary ability to understand and process the precious material, which has led to the birth of innovative creations in dialogue with the past. Gianmaria has in fact been able to look with extreme interest at the various artistic expressions of Antiquity, the Renaissance and the Rococo, as an inexhaustible source of inspiration from which to draw motifs and themes to be reworked and applied to the various types of precious artifacts.
The first section proposes a journey into Gianmaria's childhood in Milan between the two world wars, which sees the affirmation of his father Mario as the first Italian jeweler sensitive to the recovery of ancient Renaissance goldsmith techniques, close to Milanese high society and the cultural environments of La Scala, as well as a great friend of Gabriele D'Annunzio. With the contribution of the art historian Paola Goretti, the entire series of plaques commissioned by the poet to commemorate his exploits and the mottos he had coined to celebrate some of his most famous deeds are on display for the first time.
Magnificent and unpublished examples of Mario Buccellati's jewelery from the 30s and 40s introduce the second section "An Italian in the world", which traces the most significant stages of Gianmaria's career after taking over the legacy of his father, who died in 1965.
After directing the laboratories created by his father for two years, Gianmaria, driven by the broad vision of the international market, opens numerous stores in the Far East, especially in Hong Kong and Japan, and in Europe. His success is sanctioned by the inauguration, in 1979, of a boutique in Paris in the prestigious Place Vendôme, the world sanctuary of haute joaillerie.
The growth of his company went hand in hand with his artistic consecration. He has received awards and exhibitions from the most important world museums, such as the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC, the Kremlin Museum in Moscow and, recently, the Silver Museum of Palazzo Pitti in Florence. The exhibition presents a selection of creations made over the course of over seventy years of work which have made his style unique and unmistakable in the history of contemporary jewellery. An example of this is the Gran Dama brooch, designed to pay homage to motherhood, using a very rare Melo-Melo pearl, from the seas of Vietnam, thirteenth in color and size out of about one hundred existing specimens.
The itinerary ends ideally with the celebration of Gianmaria Buccellati's creative, planning and executive mastery through unique objects, understood as true works of art (third section of the exhibition): among which the Boscoreale Cups, which Mario and Gianmaria created inspired by to the Boscoreale Treasure found in 1895 in the Roman villa of Pisanella; and the Precious Objects, cups of great value, born from the study and passion for the Florentine Renaissance goldsmith collections, which were not conceived for commercial purposes.
The inspiration for this collection was born during a visit to the Museo degli Argenti in Palazzo Pitti in Florence where the Medici's jewelery masterpieces are kept. Deeply fascinated by these artifacts, Gianmaria decided to measure himself in the creation of works that could compete, in terms of executive technique, splendor and richness, with those of the Medici.
On display at the Venaria you can also admire the Queen's Cup, created in 2008 for the exhibition at the Kremlin Museum, the 2012 Rainbow Cup, conceived as a tribute to Venus, goddess of love and beauty, whose image in gold is the fulcrum of the entire structure, the Cup of the Holy Grail of 2013, a personal interpretation of the cup with which Jesus celebrated the Last Supper, and the Cup Florentia, presented for the first time on the occasion of the recent exhibition at the Museo degli Argenti in Florence, in recognition of the city that more than any other has been able to stimulate the imagination of the Milanese goldsmith through its art treasures.
Gianmaria Buccellati was born in Milan on May 21, 1929. The fourth of five brothers, he was the first to follow the career of his father, Mario, starting at the age of 16 to work in the shop and in the Milan workshops. As a simple apprentice, he learns the goldsmith's art, working alongside the craftsmen, while refining his innate skills as a designer and creator. At the age of 19, his father entrusted him with the management of the Milan store. The young Gianmaria thus got to know personally the leading exponents of the Milanese business and financial world, drawing from them experiences and knowledge that were crucial for his development. At the same time, he collaborates in the management of the laboratories and production.
After his father's death in 1965, the broad international vision led Gianmaria to develop his own brand "Gianmaria Buccellati" in Europe and above all in the Far Eastern markets, in particular in Hong Kong and Japan. This first expansion was crowned in 1979 by the opening of the large boutique in Paris in the prestigious Place Vendôme, the world sanctuary of haute joaillerie.
The genius of Gianmaria Buccellati's art has been celebrated by prestigious museums in important exhibitions. The one at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC in 2000, at the Kremlin Museum in Moscow in 2008 and last year at Palazzo Pitti in Florence is famous and with enormous public success.
To safeguard the treasure of knowledge, objects and drawings of Mario, and above all of Gianmaria, the Gianmaria Buccellati Foundation was born in 2008 which is embarking on an important path of dissemination of the national goldsmith's art in the world.
